Change Illinois' political culture

Jeanne Ives

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman philosopher, politician and lawyer. During the dictatorship of Gaius Julius Caesar, Cicero championed a return to the traditional republican government.

In Illinois, Cicero has become synonymous with the crime and corruption that permeate all levels of government. The symbolism is rich. In this state, the remarkable, the principled and the noble are defiled by our ruling class and the culture of corruption they perpetrate.

Last week, in a brazen display of power, House Speaker Michael Madigan and his lawyer Michael Kasper silenced the appeal of tens of thousands of Illinoisans of all political stripes who simply asked that voters have a say in the manner in which election maps in the state are drawn.

Yet Madigan's majority put into play several constitutional amendments and advisory referendums that will appear on the November ballot. Reconcile the ease of getting a reliable majority of votes for a ballot question with the speaker's court challenge against the fair map initiative signed by tens of thousands of citizens. Madigan and other House Democrats felt it more important to have voters weigh in on minimum wage law and birth control availability than fair election maps. Why? Because a fair map (and term limits) threatens their power.

Chicago Tribune Editorial Board member Kristen McQueary wrote in a Sunday column, "From the moment reformers decided to change the redistricting process, the rules were stacked against them. … Madigan took a two-track route to kill the remap amendment. He had Kasper challenge the amendment on constitutional grounds. The other ace in Madigan's pocket was the signature verification process. … This is Kasper's wheelhouse. No one knows the trapdoors in the election code better than he. Why? He writes them."

Fittingly, it was the philosopher Cicero who stated, "A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within … the traitor moves among those within the gates freely. … For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in the accents familiar to his victim … he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. …The traitor is the plague."

Madigan has spent decades rigging the system, unchecked by members of the political establishment. These are Cicero's traitors. They have so infected the political process in Illinois that the people are silenced via loopholes written into election laws by those in power so that they are able to maintain that power. The ruling class took an honest initiative of the people and through political gamesmanship ensured its demise.

Pundits and politicos can wring their hands for days about the unfair process: the misrepresentation of the people, the unchecked power, the corruption in state government. It's probable that they would all be right. We've heard it all before. But at the end of the day, they would have accomplished nothing for all of their discourse. As long as these conspirators are in power, the game will be played again and again.

To all the people who just had their names thrown out and voices silenced by Madigan and his supermajority of traitors, I say: Back a new initiative. Recognize that the first aim of Madigan's party of defectors is not to protect your family, children or those most in need — as evidenced by our current ranking of 51 out of 50 states and the District of Columbia in providing services to our developmentally disabled. Understand that his majority cares nothing for your rights, economic opportunity or the state's business climate. A plethora of bills that would actually help Illinoisans are blocked from debate. Their only aim is to keep their majority in office.

Madigan is not a Roman emperor. Isn't 40 years enough?

Rep. Jeanne Ives, R-Wheaton, represents the 42nd House District.

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